Thursday, 6 December 2012

The Sad Sack

So, we took over a
new building at the end of August that had a live-in caretaker. His contract
was terminated upon acquisition as there was no need for him once we were
present. He was given proper notice by the previous owners of the building and
we (new owners and us) decided to do the nice thing and allow him to stay for
the month of September for free. Although the guy had to go, I did feel a
little bad that he was losing his job and house within a month.

Sad Sack is in his
late 40s, maybe early 50s, boring, meek, a little slow, and all around
pathetic. He and I had a few interactions in the first few weeks to go over
some paperwork, collected building keys, and to discuss his future. I already
had an idea that he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed after having to pick
up the pieces of the pending arbitration case in the previous blog post so I
wasn’t expecting he would provide much help or information regarding the
function of the building and tenants within it. He has failed to sign tenancy
agreements with 21 out of the 28 units, ever given a proper notice, and
literally let the people living in the building do whatever they wanted to do.
I had no information on where people are parking, personal belongs were stuffed
all over the building, only a few phone numbers, people paying ridiculously low
rent, and a number of less-than-desirable people milling around.

I started to probe Sad Sack in regards to his
future as I needed to know if I had to rent his apartment for the following
month. Every time, his answer was, “I don’t know. I haven’t really thought
about it”. Great. So I pushed him a
little. I needed him to make a decision: Stay, or Go. Stay and sign a proper
tenancy agreement at a rate that is at market value or give me your notice that
you are moving.

He had phoned the
building owner behind my back to ask if he could stay on and work at the
building. Owner phones me to tell me about it and we have a bit of a chuckle.
What is it with these people thinking they can go over my head? My owners give
me carte blanche. I work hard and I am good at what I do. They love me.

So I see him the
next day and gently remind him that I am at the top. You can’t go past me. I
have final say on everything. He shrugs his shoulders. I push him again, “What
are your plans?” It is now almost the end of the month so I am not going to be
renting the apt should he decide to leave last minute. I go over his options
again and he stares at me like I have a fucking horn growing out of my head. Do
you know how hard it is to have a conversation with someone who is clearly read
at a grade 4 level?

I ask him if he
wants to stay for October and pay rent so he can have more time to think. It is
hard to be a bitch to someone so pathetic. Fine. He pays, and I keep asking
what the plan is. Nothing. And, more nothing. I have had enough. I tell him,
“make the decision or I will do it for you.” “Do what you have to do then.” So
I draw up all the paperwork to give him a 1-month notice to end his tenancy
based on termination to his employment contract. Standing at his door, I ask
him one more time if he would like to sign an agreement and he said that he
needs more time….again. Yeah, that’s not going to happen. All of a sudden some
lady pops up from behind the door announcing that, “Mr. Sack is an intelligent
man and weighing his options.” I stifle my laugh and say, “umm, okay” as I look
around to seen half a dozen tenancy branch papers stacked on his kitchen table.
AWESOME! You are going to try to
fight this. I know my shit…he hasn’t got a leg to stand on. I hand him the
eviction papers and leave as I hate having to dumb-down my language for too
long when talking to people.

I hear nothing for a
few weeks except a few tenants who have told me how creepy Sad Sack is and how
he just hangs out and stares at people. Our random interactions get less and
less friendly until I just ask, “So, Sad Sack…are we going to be dealing with
this in arbitration?” He says, “no” and I ask him if he phoned the branch to
clarify that everything I told him was legit and he needed to GTFO. He said,
“yes”, and I told him I am going to start showing his apt.

Fast forward to a couple
days ago. End of the month time, his apt has been rented to a new tenant, and
he is packing when I run into him going into a closet that is ‘building’
property. I take a quick look at his keys and realize that he never surrendered
ALL the building keys back in Sept and that he still has a master key. Awesome.
I make note of it for when we have out final interaction. At check-out time I
was waiting around as he was slow (shocking) and running behind. I start to
inquire about keys, garage remote, forwarding address (in case I need to take
him to arbitration post-move out) and he starts to get an attitude. I am in no
mood. Grid and I have had a very intense last two months in our personal and
work lives and I am in no mood to deal with Sad Sack’s bullshit.

He announces he is
not returning the garage remote without me handing him $40 right then and
there. That’s not how it works. I don’t give money out of pocket to tenants for
deposits they have paid for anything, especially without a receipt. They get a
proper cheque mailed to their forwarding address from the account for the
building. I tell him this and he says he isn’t giving it back if that’s the
case. I say “fine, do what you want” and I walk away. I am done. I have spent 3
months dealing with Sad Sack and his shit show. I am done being nice, feeling
bad for him, and dealing with the shitty tenants he rented to. So, I call my
henchman Gridlock. “Deal with this”.

Grid flies down to
the building happier than a pig in shit as he loves this stuff. I take off to
do more building errands and eagerly await updates by text. After watching Sad
Sack dumb around for another hour, Gridlock finally tells him that’s enough, no
more, time is up, lets end this.

Gridlock: “Alright,
Sad Sack, can I have the keys?”

Sad Sack hands over
the keys for the apt and lobby door.

Gridlock: “All the keys, Sad Sack. Dino saw you
with a master key the other day which, by the way, you were supposed to hand
over months ago and clearly didn’t.”

Sad Sack loses his
shit and refuses to hand it over. Apparently this is the sword he chooses to
die on- the fucking garage remote. He wants the $40…this is all bullshit…he
will take it with him…blah blah blah. Grid stand there listening and simply
says, “Sad Sack…you don’t really think I am going to let you walk out of here
with access to the building and compromising security seeing as you just tried
to steal the master key?!”

Silence.

Gridlock: “We have
actually treated you well”

Sad Sack: “BULLSHIT!”
and slams down the garage remote.

Gridlock: “Really!?
Let’s make sure we are crystal clear. We have not screwed you over. You lost
your job before we even took over the building. You were never part of the
plan. You were fired before we knew who you were and to BE NICE we allowed you
to stay rent FREE for a month to give you time to get things together. You took
advantage of that by doing NOTHING! We offered you to stay here as a tenant,
sign an agreement, and not lose your house. We gave you the offer to leave without official
30-day notice. We offered you every opportunity to make the choice and you did
not want to pay market value for the apartment. This isn’t a ‘bid your own rent’
building! It is a business. We didn’t push you out, you pushed yourself out.”

Sad Sack: “You
evicted me!”

Gridlock: “Don’t
think for one second that we evicted you. You evicted yourself. It was YOUR
choice. You have had 3 months and to show you that we are STILL being nice, it
is December 3rd and we are still standing here! You were supposed to
be out 3 days ago.”

Silence. He had
nothing to say. He can go on about how we were horrible and his crazy
lady-friend can sit there and feel bad for “Mr. Sack” while shooting me dirty
looks, but we don’t. We had no choice. I couldn’t allow anyone to live in a
building with no tenancy agreement and to have never paid a damage deposit. It
just can’t happen.

He grabbed the last
of his things and slowly slithered like the sad sack he is. At one point I did
feel bad for him but, he had every opportunity to avoid this. He had been
offered job at other buildings but never followed up. He never looked for
another apartment. He honestly just thought I would go away and have some
random person live in my building who had a set of master keys, access to
everyone and everything, and pay whatever rent he saw fit.